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586  College & Research Libraries November 1998

Book Reviews 

Criteria for Promotion and Tenure for Aca­
demic Librarians. Comp. Virginia Ves­
per and Gloria Kelley for the ACRL 
(Clip Note no. 26). Chicago: ALA, 1997. 
143p. $28.50, alk. paper (ISBN 
0838979289). LC 97-39396. 

The issues of promotion and tenure, as 
well as faculty status, for academic librar­
ians have always been complex and at 
times controversial. This complexity is 
apparent in a review of the survey on 
which this volume is based; it highlights 
the differences and similarities between 
classroom faculty and academic librar­
ians. Readers also are furnished with 
background and perspective on the vari­
ous arguments that have evolved over the 
years concerning these issues. 

The primary objective of the survey 
was to determine whether “librarians 
with faculty status have a greater oppor­
tunity for tenure and promotion than li­
brarians with academic or professional 
status.” Those with and without academic 
rank, as well as librarians with and with­
out faculty status, were surveyed. In ad­
dition to these findings, promotion and 
tenure criteria from some institutions of 
higher education were collected and com­
pared. 

Vesper and Kelley reproduce a num­
ber of the promotion and tenure docu­
ments from the academic institutions in­
cluded in the survey. The book includes 
documents from public institutions such 
as Arizona State University, West Cam­
pus, and State University of New York 
(SUNY) at Plattsburgh, as well as private 
institutions such as Alfred University and 
Eckerd College. This material provides 
invaluable information about how peers 
from public, private, and unionized in­
stitutions are handling the (for the most 
part) subjective task of formulating pro­
motion and tenure criteria. Knowledge 
and mastery of subject matter, effective­
ness of teaching, scholarly ability, univer­

sity service, and the potential for 
continued growth are a few of the 
categories most commonly used to 
evaluate and assess librarians. 

Both raw-number compos­
ites and percentages are given 
for all survey results. A particu­
larly important feature of the survey is 
the correlation of degrees held to that of 
faculty rank (i.e., instructor, assistant pro­
fessor, etc.). The usual question as to 
whether the MLS is considered the ter­
minal degree at each of the respective in­
stitutions is included; respondents were 
also asked what degree should be re­
quired for librarians holding each faculty 
rank. Also included is a list of the names 
and addresses of CLIP Note Committee 
members and a two-page bibliography. 

Vesper and Kelley have done a remark­
able job in compiling ACRL CLIP Note 
no. 26. This volume will provide guidance 
for academic libraries and librarians who 
are in need of instruments or templates 
for their promotion and tenure review 
process. It will be indispensable for ad­
ministrators and librarians interested in 
faculty status, tenure, or promotion for aca­
demic librarians.—Felix E. Unaeze, Ferris 
State University, Big Rapids, Michigan. 

Fabian, Bernhard. In Close Association: 
Research, Humanities, and the Library. 
Trans. John J. Boll. Champaign: Gradu­
ate School of Library and Information 
Science, Univ. of Illinois (Occasional 
Papers, no. 208), 1998. 70p. $12, alk. 
paper. 

At the end of this booklet, the reader is 
informed that the publisher is consis­
tently ranked as one of the top three li­
brary and information science programs 
in the United States, while its university 
is consistently ranked as one of the top 
universities. Woe to their respective, sup­
posedly lower-ranked peers, after read­
ing this mess of a study. 

586 



Book Reviews 587 

In 1983, Bernhard Fabian published 
Buch, Bibliothek, und Geisteswissen­
schaftliche Forschung: Zu Problemen der 
Literaturversorgung und der Literatur­
produktion in der Bundesrepublik (The Book, 
the Library, and Research in the Humanities: 
On the Problems of Caring for and Providing 
Literature in West Germany). The study was 
masterly—the right book written for the 
right audience at the right time. So, ini­
tially, I was overjoyed to begin reading 
In Close Association, which I thought 
would be Fabian’s updated discussion of 
these issues for an English-speaking au­
dience in 1998. 

Fabian offers a commentary on the re­
lationship between libraries and their 
users; specifically, he views—from a 
scholar ’s perspective—the methods of 
supplying necessary research materials in 
the humanities. Since1983, of course, li­
braries, the publishing world, scholars’ 
requirements, and our concept of the hu­
manities have changed dramatically. The 
humanities have developed in the past 
fifteen years, both in Germany and the 
United States, in at least three profound 
ways: (1) interdisciplinary study pro­
grams have emerged at universities 
(sometimes at the expense of less popu­
lar disciplines); (2) publishers have over­
hauled their commitment in the market­
place, according to their consumers’ per­
ceived wants; and (3) libraries continue 
to meet the increasingly sophisticated 
needs of their users, especially with re­
spect to new media and off-site access to 
these and other of the libraries’ resources. 

Although I did find the section on in­
terlibrary lending pertinent to the book’s 
objective, In Close Association is otherwise 
a study with many obvious weaknesses. 
The title itself is false advertising. The 
reader is led to believe that the study is 
tailored for American readers and will 
treat current themes of interest to them. 
Instead, one is faced with an undue em­
phasis on Germany with dated, irrelevant 
overviews. Far too much of the discus­
sion regurgitates specifically German is­
sues from the 1983 book. Are such topics 
really of interest to the intended audi­

ence? I would contend that they are not; 
but if they are, should they not at least 
also reflect the present situation in Ger­
many? Moreover (again if they are of in­
terest), should the author not include ref­
erences to other recent studies that treat 
the topics at hand (e.g., Hans-Peter 
Thun’s An Introduction to Librarianship in 
the Federal Republic of Germany [1996] and 
my Odyssey of a German National Library 
[1996])? The author uses only endnotes; 
they are dated, and more than a few are 
extraneous. Moreover, the work needs an 
index and a bibliography. 

In addition, there is the question of 
John J. Boll’s role in the project. In the 
preface, Boll is frank about changing 
Fabian’s 1983 book. Boll translated it. 
More important, with Fabian’s approval, 
Boll omitted about half of the original 
while updating and adapting the rest for 
“American conditions and needs.” Boll’s 
actual breakdown of the original work 
versus the present work is as comic as it 
is mind-spinning: 45 percent of the 
present work is unchanged from the origi­
nal; 38 percent is new text (by Boll? by 
Fabian? presumably the former); 17 per­
cent updates the original; and 32 percent 
of the original work’s pages and 36 per­
cent of its text were omitted. What does 
it all mean? Who knows? What is clear 
(or rather unclear) is that at no point in In 
Close Association do we really know 
whether Fabian or Boll is the author, or 
whether certain prices and numerical data 
are based on 1983 or 1998 figures (or those 
from another year). In any case, compar­
ing the 1998 text to the 1983 original is a 
task that presumably few people would 
want to be assigned. 

Several questions could—and should— 
have been addressed in this book. Given 
the book’s title, the questions are relevant 
and timely. To what extent will the Inter­
net impact how scholars work in the hu­
manities? How will distribution patterns 
(e.g., superstores, vendor—library rela­
tions, electronic sales) affect the provision 
of materials in the humanities for librar­
ies and scholars? How will specific genres 
in the humanities (e.g., fiction) be distrib­



588 College & Research Libraries 

uted and consumed in the future? And in 
what formats? These questions demand 
serious answers, however impressionis­
tic and futuristic; Fabian and/or Boll do 
not spend sufficient time on them. 

They do address the relationship of 
electronic journals and the humanities, 
but by then it is far too little and, arriving 
immediately before the epilogue, too late. 
Surely, in the late 1990s, the authors can­
not still believe that the Online Conspec­
tus Database “should ultimately become 
a useful guide to holdings strengths and 
help in coordinated acquisitions policies.” 
I suppose they have a point if you do not 
mind leading yourself blindfolded down 
a dark tunnel. Yet the authors continue 
undeterred: they would rather persuade 
the reader that the conspectus is designed 
to provide complete standardized infor­
mation on the location of specific humani­
ties collections and their relative strengths 
in North American research libraries. The 
dream lives on. 

Finally, the authors are unreasonably 
anachronistic. Their prediction that 
monographs and journals on paper will 
remain dominant in the humanities and 
their opinion that the book in paper for­
mat is still the ideal standard for publica­
tion in the humanities are both akin to the 
ideas of an ostrich that has yet to stick its 
head out of the sand for fifteen years. 
Scholars’ habits and publishers’ products 
have changed, and betting everything on 
the primacy of paper is, as we enter the 
next century, no sure thing. 

How very disappointed I was after 
reading this book. What a waste of a 
grand opportunity.—Michael P. Olson, 
Harvard University. 

Guidelines for Educational Use of Copy­
righted Materials. Ed. Peggy Hoon. 
Pullman, Wash.: Washington State 
Univ. Pr., 1997. 34p. $15 (ISBN 0-87422­
161-7). LC 97-32885. 

Succinct, well organized, accessible, prac­
tical, dry—these all describe this helpful 
manual on copyright law for educators. 
Prepared by copyright specialist and at­
torney for Washington State University 

November 1998 

Peggy Hoon, the document was origi­
nally drafted to provide operating guide­
lines for the WSU community. In response 
to widespread interest, its publication and 
distribution has been increased. The 
guidelines are applicable and easily 
adapted to all educational institutions, 
public and private. 

The work is well organized by type of 
publication and type of use. There is no 
index, but a detailed table of contents fa­
cilitates finding pertinent sections within 
this slim paperback volume. 

The book opens with a discussion of 
the purpose of copyright, rights of the 
owner, and a brief description of the com­
monly used term fair use. The common 
misconception that educational use, in 
and of itself, constitutes fair use is shat­
tered in the opening pages. Infringements 
of copyright law may result in personal 
as well as institutional liability. 

After a brief introduction to the con­
cept of copyright, the book focuses on its 
primary purpose, which is to explore the 
practical issues of using copyrighted ma­
terials. A review of the protections that 
apply to printed materials is extremely 
useful, covering both published and un­
published works, and facts and ideas. The 
discussion helps clarify confusing prob­
lems in determining whether copyright 
protection exists, based on the date of cre­
ation and/or publication of a work. The 
confusion is further simplified by the 
inclusion of an easy-to-read chart (ap­
pendix G) produced by noted copy­
right lecturer and authority Laura 
Gasaway. 

The author then outlines, in a succinct 
and usable format, what constitutes per­
missible use in research, in the classroom, 
for library reserves, library photocopying, 
and interlibrary loan. This is the heart of 
the publication, providing practical ad­
vice on the legal use of copyrighted ma­
terials. 

In sidebars, the author poses fre­
quently asked questions (FAQs) to illus­
trate points. The format is difficult to use 
to find an answer to a specific need; an 
index would have served better for that